1888.

1888. a new series by wunderkind ellen rogers. my heart is caught in my throat.

the fierceness of female.

i am spinning.

i am spinning on the lips,

they remove my shadow,

my phantom from my past,

they invented a timetable of tongues,

that take up all my attention.

wherein there is no room.

no bed.

the clock does not tick

except where it vibrates my 4000 pulses,

and where all was absent,

all is two,

touching like a choir of butterflies,

and like the ocean,

pushing toward land

and receding

and pushing

with a need that gallops

all over my skin,

yelling at the reefs.

i unknit.

words fly out of place

and i, long into the desert,

drink and drink

and bow my head to that meadow

the breast, the melon in it,

and then the intoxicating flower of it.

our hands that stroke each other

the nipples like baby starfish-

to make our lips sucking into lunatic rings

until they are bubbles,

our fingers naked as petals

and the world pulses on a swing

i raise my pelvis to god

so that it may know the truth of how

flowers smash through the long winter.

-anne sexton 1976.